Over lunch a few years ago, noted security researcher Mikko Hypponen once told me and a group of other technology journalists that downloading the magazine was a pretty good way to gain the attention of America’s national security infrastructure, but apparently he overestimated: Despite Tsarnaev’s reading habits,warnings from Russia, and a vastly expanded surveillance apparatus, the Tsarnaev were still able to successfully attack America, apparently with little or no outside help.

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So what are we getting instead? It sounds like the same thing big enterprises everywhere get when they have open checkbooks and no sound strategy: Ballooning budgets full of overhyped PowerPoint presentations and technology that may or may not work, but do a good job meeting the fantasy checklists of executives eager to show paper progress.

And there are plenty of entrepreneurial types willing to help part taxpayers from their money. After the Boston Marathon bombings, the New York times and I both profiled Buzzient, which Scott Kirsner took to task for self-promotion in the wake of a tragedy:

”You also had people sharing ‘We Love Boston’ images that happened to include their company’s logo (whoops, quick apology), and entrepreneurs showing up on television and in print to tout their software’s ability to find clues to a crime amid social media chatter. Buzzient founder Timothy B. Jones endlessly tweeted about his Bloomberg TV and New York Times press hits last week; the start-up, once based in Boston, now seems to operate out of Kennebunkport, Maine.”